Combat Scars
by Sierra Janeway
Summary: Loki made the decision to let go. After that, gravity took its toll. And maybe fate. A lot happened between his fall from Asgard and his theft of the Tesseract. And he's the not the only one trying to deal with a heavy loss. Loki whump and angst
1. Fallen

_Disclaimer: All original characters and such belong to Marvel._

**Summary: **Loki made the decision to let go. After that, gravity took its toll. And maybe fate. A lot happened between his fall from Asgard and his theft of the Tesseract. And he's the not the only one trying to deal with a heavy loss.

**Chronology: **Post-Thor, pre-Avengers

**Pairings: **None for the moment

**Rating: **K+ for over cautiousness. May go up later.

**Author's Note:** Because I can never say no to Starkreactor.

* * *

**Combat Scars**

The needle on the gas gauge of her Honda Civic crept perilously close to the E, even as Katie Evans guided the car up her driveway and into the garage. She ignored it. She always did, until the very last possible second. The way she did with everything in her life these days.

Inside the garage was much like a tomb, the cool gray cement on the floor and the unfinished drywall sides holding sound like a shell, inviting echoes in the dust. The dust thinly coated everything inside the structure, from the shelves holding plastic totes of out-of-season clothing to the band saw and the ride on mower. Katie tried to ignore the lonely, too-loud clack of her heels as she stepped out of the vehicle. She made sure to close the car door behind her slowly, doing her best to avoid the thunderclap noise that would result from even closing the door normally. Loud noises still messed with her head, her emotions. She left the garage as quickly as possibly, closing the structure's small white man door behind her with a sharp click.

The cement between the garage and the house was cracking in several places. It had been for years, but something about the harshness of the past Ohio winter had accelerated the process. It was just another thing that she didn't want to think about, couldn't bring herself to deal with. But because her default stance these days was shoulders hunched and head angled down, she was forced to at least look at the crumbling rock every day, the little chunks that bounced and split under the weight of her scratched and worn simple beige heels.

On her tiny porch that was ringed with scroll-like black iron fencing, she stopped to pull the mail from the small black metal box hanging next to the door. She put her key into the lock on the plain green wooden door as she did so, trying to minimize the time that she spent out in the open. Vulnerable. One of the neighbors might spot her. Try to start a conversation. While it wasn't the worst thing that could happen, she always felt trapped when it happened. Social niceties no longer made sense to her. It was another language, like something she'd learned in infancy but no longer could retrieve in her brain.

Thankfully the door gave way without a fuss and the small handful of mail came with her. She shut the door firmly behind her and turned the deadbolt out of habit, before she even glanced at the stack of envelopes in her hand. Walking to the island in the kitchen, Katie sifted through them without much patience. Bill. Magazine subscription. Another bill. Card from her mother. Bill. Bill. Credit card offer. Political campaign ad. Weight loss promotion. Bill. Dentist appointment reminder. The junk mail she immediately tossed into a box on the floor marked "Recycling." The bills were opened, studied, and then placed on her desk next to her checkbook in the order that they were due. The card from her mother was not opened, and went underneath the bills on her desk.

Katie kicked off her shoes under the desk and gave an audible sigh of relief, almost loud in the empty house, as she stepped back down to earth at her normal height. The linoleum chilled her bare feet, but the sensation was stimulating after a numbing day of checking account balances, cashing checks, and making change at the small branch office of the bank where she worked. She returned to the kitchen, tugging her white button collared shirt out from the waist of her skirt where it had been tucked in since seven a.m. that morning. And every morning. She selected a teacup from the drainer next to the sink and placed it right side up on the counter as she tugged the small green silky scarf from around her neck. She selected an Earl Grey tea bag from the boxed collection in the cupboard above the sink, and used her other hand to start undoing buttons on her shirt. She filled a small shiny silver kettle with water, placed it on the stove, and lit the burner. She perched on a chair to wait for it to boil, occasionally glancing over towards her desk and mildly toying with the idea of opening the card.

She flipped idly through an issue of Reader's Digest as she waited, reading a quarter or half of an article before losing interest and moving on. She nearly gave herself a papercut flipping past the joke sections. Finally the kettle whistled and she hopped down, carefully tipping the kettle over the teabag nestled in the plain porcelain cup. She inhaled the rising steam gratefully, and undid the rest of the buttons on her shirt, leaving it hanging open and loose, exposing her plain beige bra – not a scrap of lace or a miniscule bow to be seen. She stepped carefully to the French doors that led to the little stone patio that started her backyard, sipping experimentally at the tea as she went. She tugged away the curtains that made a gauzy film on the inside of the white-framed, glass-paneled structure, pushed open the doors, and promptly started and spilled half her tea on the patio stones.

The back lawn grass was long and dotted with wildflowers, the norm since she'd stopped bothering to mow and silently, humbly accepted the times when her neighbor's teenage son snuck over to do it for her. Now, however, immediately obvious against the soft colors of the lawn, was a large, battered, dirty lump of black and green. Its mere presence was enough to startle her, as a lot of things were these days, and its having caught her off guard now combined with the sheer oddity of its being. Her first assumption was a bag of trash some delinquent had decided to toss over the wooden privacy fence and into her yard. But the more she looked at it, the more she realized it was the wrong size and texture for a garbage bag. An old piece of fabric then, maybe a barbeque grill cover or something from someone's boat. But that didn't look quite right either. It did seem to be fabric, but something more like for clothing. And something about bits of the black coloring seemed shiny—not metal shiny, but perhaps leather shiny.

Katie cautiously rested her teacup on the glass top of the small round table on the patio, and picked up the tongs that hung rusting from the tiny barbeque at the back of her house. Not a very effective weapon to be sure, but it might be enough to fend off a rabid raccoon until she could make it to the safety of her house. She approached the lump one step at a time, her mind refining and rejecting bits of theories the closer she got and the more details she noticed. It did appear to be some kind of fabric and leather combination, but it was filthy and torn and stained with something dark. And there appeared to be something made of a golden metal at one end. She circled around to the far side of the odd shape.

There, she dropped the tongs in shock and hastily buttoned her blouse, her fingers fumbling frantically with the buttons and forcing them through the wrong slits, one button too low and her shirt then crooked. But that was the least of her concerns. The lump had now revealed itself to be a man. A very badly injured, very strangely dressed man.

Katie snatched up the tongs and took a jump-step backwards, holding the inadequate weapon firmly in front of her. But the man didn't move, and she couldn't deny the presence of blood on his clothes and face, and the awkward, unnatural way he was half curled in on himself. She'd elected to take first aid and CPR training when the classes became available at the bank, and her natural protective instincts began to take over. He could be an escaped criminal, part of her brain argued. He's still dying or maybe dead, the louder part shot back. She knelt next to him, gingerly tracing along his neck to feel for a pulse. The skin was colder than she'd expected, and she nearly snatched her hand back, not overly thrilled at the prospect of touching a dead man. But just as she thought there was nothing to find and a vision of cops and questions and body bags began to shimmer into being in her head, her fingers accidentally found it.

A tiny flutter of a heartbeat. Nothing more than a quiver under her fingertips, like a kitten's sleeping paw inadvertently grazing her skin as it slumbered.

There was a man left to be saved.

She felt an involuntary quick intake of breath at the realization. She briefly considered calling 911. But the vision of police swam before her eyes again, people with uniforms asking questions, tromping through her sacred, quiet space. It was completely irrational, and stupid, and selfish. _Forgive me_, she mouthed silently at the unmoving form of the man in front of her. She ran her hands along his body, feeling for broken bones as best she could, and praying that moving him wouldn't leave him paralyzed. Her irrationality, the bit that made the emergency number beyond her reach, stayed in command. Katie looked over the man, deduced arms and legs and torso, rolled up her sleeves, and with a surprising show of strength scooped up the man like she might have done with a child and carried him slowly into the house. Her eyes darted around for the neighbors, but everyone appeared to be preoccupied with their own lives indoors.

Katie's steps were slow and heavy, and green fabric that seemed to be a cape trailed on the ground and threatened to trip her. She stepped carefully, gauging every foothold before she took advantage of it. She paused momentarily in the kitchen, but turned quickly from there and made her laborious way into the living room. Her brown striped couch was devoid of pillows or anything decorative, but curved in a large, luxurious L-shape in the near corner of the room. She stooped, and the laid the man out carefully on the furniture. As she did, the golden metal piece fell away and landed with a dull thud on the dark green carpeting. For the first time, she noticed that it had been meant to be a helmet, though it was now so battered and worn that it bore little resemble to what form it must have originally appeared in. The absurdity of the situation eluded her as the man's face became clearly obvious for the first time.

Pale skin. Black hair, long enough to graze his shoulders. Sharp features. All tinted with blood – dried blood, congealed blood, slowly trickling blood. Dirt caked everywhere. Bruises. Burns.

Katie stepped back, her mind blank and sheer instinct starting to take over basic actions, both for her survival and for his. She cast her hands over her mid-length black skirt and did not notice the bloody handprints they left behind, hidden mostly by the darkness of the fabric.


	2. Bleeding

_Disclaimer: All original characters and such belong to Marvel._

**Summary: **Loki made the decision to let go. After that, gravity took its toll. And maybe fate. A lot happened between his fall from Asgard and his theft of the Tesseract. And he's the not the only one trying to deal with a heavy loss.

**Chronology: **Post-Thor, pre-Avengers

**Pairings: **None for the moment

**Rating: **T for description of injuries.

**Author's Note:** So much Loki whump. Plot doesn't move forward a lot, but if you like descriptions, well…Merry Christmas. Things should really start moving in the next chapter.

* * *

**Combat Scars**

It seemed an eternity before Loki opened his eyes again. The last thing he remembered seeing was the faces of his father and his brother, then the swirling blue and black and iridescent stars that made up the space between the realms. Now, through a crushing fog of pain, he managed to lift one eyelid ever so slightly.

The light that rushed in stabbed his eye and he let the lid fall shut again, protectively. Every bit of him ached. He couldn't move. Breathing took intense effort, and even then both exhaling and inhaling burned as though he had swallowed fire. Even though he had not done so since he was a child, he wanted to weep from the pain, scream, moan, something. But it was all he could do to remain perfectly still, trying to mentally force the throbbing from his body, or at least block it from his mind. The effort, however, was clouded by the white-hot sensation that stabbed him all over – even inside his mind.

Loki didn't know how long it was between the first time that he attempted to open his eyes and the second, though when he tried again the light did pain him less. His body still felt utterly useless and as though it was filled with a thousand shards of glass, but the light began to sort itself into colors, and then shapes, and he knew with certainty that he was alive, at least for the time being, and that he might now be able to discern where he had ended up. He hadn't really planned when he let go of the staff, hadn't necessarily counted on ending up alive. He had wanted to hurt his father, the man who wouldn't listen, who never gave him a chance, the man who might have had good intentions but always managed to foul them up when it came to his youngest son. Not even his son, really, Loki recalled with an emotional bitterness that matched his searing physical pain throb for throb.

His thoughts were interrupted by another stab of sharp pain, and then the sudden nauseas sensation that he was still falling through an endless abyss, though as far as he could tell he was laying flat on a soft surface of some kind. His eyes snapped shut. It reminded him of the occasions when, as children, he and Thor had run through the waves on the shore of the summer palace on Asgard. They would stay in the water for hours, and then when they were tucked in bed that night they would lay perfectly motionless and murmur in amazement as the sensation of still dipping and rising with the waves coursed through their bodies.

He blocked his brother's face in his mind's eye, wanting to snarl at the intrusion, but just drawing breath was still torture. He tried opening his eyes again, focusing as best he could on the vague, fuzzy shapes drifting in his line of sight. White. Walls, maybe, since the color took up so much of the background. So he was inside. He wondered idly for a moment how that had happened, but most of his brainpower went to trying to sort out the rest of what floated in his field of view. There were smears of color and golden light that he took to perhaps be tapestries and candles or torches, but he couldn't focus his vision much further than that. There wasn't even the possibility of turning his head. He fought to keep his eyes open.

And suddenly a new shape and set of colors entered his sight line. This time, they moved of their own volition and not merely because of the extreme pain digging into his every nerve. He stared, willing his mind to sort it out. He detested being without knowledge, being vulnerable. Agonizingly slowly, he saw the paler colors bleed together to suggest skin, and the darker ones curving over the paler ones to suggest hair. A person. There was a bright white from the neck down. A tunic, perhaps. He tried to force his eyes to meet theirs, to stare them down and somehow silently demand information, but to his frustration, they never turned directly to him. They seemed preoccupied with some sort of cloth, and what seemed to maybe be an assortment of bottles. He couldn't move, or make a sound, and they continued to ignore him. He wanted to scream at them. He was a _god_, and he would not be held against his will or threatened or toyed with. The small, careful movements of the individual frustrated him to the boiling point as he laid in agony, and he cursed Odin and Thor and Heimdal and anyone else he could link to his misery.

Another rush of white-hot pain knifed his very essence and he let go yet again, this time to slide helpless into the deep darkness of unconsciousness.

Katie's hands trembled as she darted into her bathroom, poking her head back out every few seconds to stare at the horribly damaged man on her couch. He didn't move at all, and she couldn't decide if it was good or bad. Maybe good for her, at least for now. Probably bad for him. Then again, if he stayed still, she might be able to patch him up before he could make the injuries worse. But if he was barely even breathing, then he was close to death… She inhaled a shaky, shallow breath of her own and tried to calm herself enough to think. She managed to work the latch on the medicine cabinet and stared at its contents. The first aid in her head was a jumble of recommendations and products and liquids and purposes and substitutes. She reached out for one thing and then drew her hand back, second guessing the most basic things. Finally she sank to the cool black tiled floor, pressing back tears with her fingertips. She let her head hang between her knees, focusing on the sharp lines between each small tile – the closet thing she had found to meditation or yoga that didn't make her feel self-conscious and that actually fought back the poisonous waves of panic and loneliness and fear, however marginally.

Her own breath echoed in the small room, playing off the sink and the bathtub and the toilet. She could hear what she had come to call the breath of the house, the imperceptible little noises that no one ever noticed, the clock and the DVD player and the pipes and even the boards in the walls resting on one another. She held her breath and counted a dozen heartbeats. She sucked in another breath and repeated the process. After a bit, her head began to clear and she slowly pulled herself up, facing the cabinet again. Now she returned to autopilot, the way she'd been when she had lifted the man's still, bloody form and carried it into her living room. She stared down the cabinet, and pulled out hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol and antibiotic ointment. She opened the cupboard under the sink and pulled out old towels and what was left of a roll of gauze and a small bucket and paper towels. She loaded her arms and returned awkwardly to the living room where she froze part way to the man, thinking she had seen him move. After a few seconds of nothing, she decided she must have been mistaken and piled the collection of supplies at the foot of the couch. She dashed back to the bathroom for a moment, seeking out anything she might have missed that might be helpful. She added a pair of tweezers and a pair of scissors to her pockets, as well as what was left of a bottle of strong painkillers – the remnants of caring for a broken arm. When she was fully certain she'd emptied the room of anything that might possibly help save a life, she dashed back to the living room.

The man remained where he'd been, though if possible his unconscious face somehow looked more forlorn than before. Katie inhaled another difficult breath, trying once more to get her nerves under control. She hadn't trembled this badly in quite some time, though the tremors had never truly gone away. The last time she had had so little control of her own limbs was…when they had first given her the news. She shuddered. A deep breath. Another. She forced herself to look at the unconscious form on her couch. There was a life under all that fabric and leather and dirt and blood. One she could still do something about. She felt a little more control in her limbs, and she began picking up towels, refolding them, arranging them and the bottles of peroxide and alcohol on the end table at the foot of the couch. The small movements each brought her another measure of control.

Once everything was arranged, she hurried into the kitchen to fill the bucket with what remained of the water she had boiled for tea, and then topped it off with the hottest water she could run in her sink. While it filled, she scrubbed her hands and arms up to her elbows with soap and water as hot as she could stand it. Katie moved more slowly and carefully back to the living room when the bucket was filled, resting it on the floor approximately adjacent with the man's shoulder. She knelt there, and took one last deep, long breath before she gingerly rested a hand on his chest. She almost held her breath, ready for sudden movement. But nothing happened. Slowly, she let her hand creep back up to his neck, feeling once again for a pulse. The tiny bumping motion was still there. She felt an involuntary sigh of relief ease out of her throat, and without further delay she forced her brain into triage mode. She wouldn't know the extent of his injuries until she'd removed his odd clothing.

So she did.

Katie worked her fingers over each element of his outfit, contemplating a plan. The fabric should come off easily with scissors—she didn't want to risk further injury by attempting to remove the clothes whole—but the leather and the metal was to be a different matter. In addition, she wasn't sure how much pressure the entire ensemble might be putting on a wound somewhere, preventing him from bleeding out. She might pull something away, only to have a geyser erupt. There was no way to know until she actually tried it. The numbers 911 danced in her head again, but so did a chaotic vision of too many men in suits saying too many things in a space she still rarely found small or quiet enough. She pulled at a corner of green cloth and began to cut.

She pretended that it was just an old shirt that needed turned into rags, not the very strange outfit of a dying man she'd found in her backyard. She cut away the straps that held the cape on his back, but left the green fabric between him and the couch. He might be more comfortable, and though she wasn't terribly concerned about it, it might keep some of the blood out of the cushions. She gently slid a hand under his shoulder, lifting him as best she could to check for injuries on his back. Luckily all she found there were minor cuts and bruises – the real damage seemed reserved for the front of him. She left the question as to why that would be for later, and turned her attentions then to the heavy leather encircling his chest, where there seemed to be quite a bit of blood. She paused to think, and then ran to her desk to fetch a pocketknife and a pair of wire cutters. Both the wire cutters and the knife were meant for business – this particular pocketknife was multi-use and stamped with the name and symbol of the US Army. She flipped out a small saw blade and gingerly began sawing away at the leather, pausing now and then to snip away at metal formations that vaguely hinted at some kind of armor.

Progress was slow, but bits of pale chest began to show as she worked, along with bloody wounds in shades of a seemingly angry red and black as well as huge bruises, mostly blue and dark purple, but a few in the brilliant red of the newest of bruises. Several burns blossomed here and there, also in various stages of development. She let a hiss of breath out through her teeth, as though she could take the pain on herself for him. She worked away all the fabric over his torso and his arms, discarding them piece by piece in a chaotic pile next to her coffee table. She had to stare for a minute when she was done, because the sheer rawness of the wounds took her breath away. She turned to the bottles standing ready, wondering what had happened to him and how he was still alive.

Katie selected a small towel and soaked it with hydrogen peroxide. She glanced over the man's damaged chest, selected what appeared to be the deepest, most serious wound, and gently placed the wet towel over it. Immediately a white foam sprang up around the area, an audible hissing startling her. The froth was tinged with pink and brown as it grew and rolled over the edges of his chest, dripping steadily onto the cape she'd left under him. She frowned at the chest wounds and looked back at the bottle. It was nearly full. She picked it up, and with a silent apology drizzled it over his entire chest, carefully avoiding the burns, and wincing as foam sprang up everywhere and took on the tint of his injuries. Dirt ran off with the blood. She left the area to disinfect while she soaked another small towel and began working on the smaller, far less serious cuts on his arms.

They didn't take long, and as his chest still bubbled with the chemical reaction between blood and peroxide, she forced herself to turn her attention to his legs. Katie had been trying to avoid anything from his waist to his knees out of a blushing respect, but she could see more blood so she forced a deep breath and reminded herself that dignity and modesty counted for nothing if you were dead. She carefully pried what was left of the boots from his feet and picked the pocketknife back up and began working on his pants.

The wounds there were not nearly as serious, save for one. She draped a towel over his waist to preserve his privacy as best she could, then turned her attention to the deep gash in his left leg. It trickled blood at an almost alarming rate, seemingly having been stemmed by the pressure of the leather – as she had feared. She quickly set about cleaning it with more peroxide and warm water and padding it with towels. The towels seemed to slow the bleeding, but the skin still gaped open in a way that made her stomach quiver. Her mind whispered about stitches, but she ignored it. She had to. Too many people. She couldn't leave, he couldn't leave, and they couldn't come in. She pressed the edges of the wound together with her fingers, her mind racing.

And then it clicked.

Whether she had seen it on a medical show, or a crime drama, or read it online somewhere, or overheard it from someone, she couldn't remember. But she ran to her desk and returned to the man's side with a roll of duct tape and a bottle of super glue. Katie tore off a dozen strips of the tape and lined them up on the edge of the couch. She removed the towel padding bit by bit and used pieces of the tape to secure the edges of the wound as she held them so they touched. She moved slowly from one end of the wound to the other, and when it was fully secured, she started over from one end, cleaning and drying the injury as best she could for a second time before she dripped a thin line of super glue onto the touching edges of the torn skin. She pulled the pieces of tape off as she worked, once the glue had dried. A fragment of a memory joined her as she worked, something about athletes using super glue to seal their own wounds during competitions because it worked so quickly and protected the injury. She sighed, shaky, when she saw that it was in fact working.

Katie turned her attention again to the man's chest, getting a fresh bucket of water and a new towel to rinse and dry the injuries as much as possible without leaving fibers in the tacky blood. She paid special attention then to the burns, gently dabbing at them with a cool cloth and then covering them with gauze. She applied it with what she hoped was a feather of a touch, because the shocking red staring back at her looked to be possibly more painful than even the bloodied wounds. She emptied the tube of antibiotic ointment into her palm and applied it everywhere as best as she could, making a note to buy several more tubes when she went out next. Thankfully, nothing here gaped the way it had on his leg. These injuries she was able to cover with gauze and medical tape, cutting strips of the filmy white material and folding it in creative waves to cover as much area as possible. He resembled a patchwork mummy when she was finished, but he looked clean and the wounds didn't appear infected. She picked up one more towel and crept to where his head rested against the couch.

His features were vivid, even under blood and dirt. He had a strong nose and a sharp brow, accentuated by the dark eyebrows that curved over his motionless eyes. His face was angular, almost thin. She held her breath as she lowered the towel to touch his face. He didn't stir, and she began gently wiping away the blood and dirt. Every swipe of the cloth brought more of his face into proper focus. Luckily most of his face had been spared the abuse received by the rest of his body, and her work did not take long. She carefully administered antibiotic as a finishing touch of sorts, and straightened up from where she knelt to observe the overall effect. After everything, he was beginning to look almost human.

Her limbs no longer trembled.

She retrieved two ice packs and a bag of peas from her freezer, wrapped them in cloth, and nestled them carefully against the most bruised parts of his body. She turned then to the hall closet where she picked the softest blankets she had to drape over his still form. With the blue cotton tucked nearly to his chin, he almost looked peaceful. She almost smiled.

Katie tided the room as best she felt she could, not knowing how much of what supplies she would need again and how soon, and then collapsed on the carpet just steps from the couch. Sleep took her within a few breaths, the first time it had done so in years and the first time it had done so without the aid of tightly pulled blinds and a fan and a stack of blankets to ward off shivers that were never from a physical cold.

Katie slept, and for once she was not haunted by the sounds of war.


	3. Eyes Open

_Disclaimer: All original characters and such belong to Marvel and Disney._

**Summary: **Loki made the decision to let go. After that, gravity took its toll. And maybe fate. A lot happened between his fall from Asgard and his theft of the Tesseract. And he's the not the only one trying to deal with a heavy loss.

**Chronology: **Post-Thor, pre-Avengers

**Pairings: **None for the moment

**Rating: **T because of injuries in the second chapter

**Author's Note:** Wow, thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! You are all so nice! I'm really glad you're enjoying this so far, especially since this just started as a gift for a friend. As far as this chapter goes: not so much forward with the plot as I'd hoped. But I think there are some nice moments in here that will set things up well for when the real progression starts. Also, introduction of dialogue! (Though I'm very pleased I managed to make the previous descriptions not boring for you!)

* * *

**Combat Scars**

Loki did not know how long he floated in the shadows of unconsciousness. He half-expected to never wake up again.

But after some indeterminate amount of time, he rejoined the waking world, his eyes drifting open of their own accord. The white walls he had glimpsed earlier were still there, so he hadn't been moved. And then with a sudden start, he realized that he no longer felt as though he were dying. There was still a deep ache throughout his body, but now it was dulled and no longer accompanied by the knife-like sensation he'd been filled with before. Despite his exhaustion, he tried to shift positions or sit up but immediately ended the endeavor when his body responded with a new wave of pain. So he was still mostly immobile. He cursed inwardly, but found gratitude in the fact that breathing no longer seemed to be such a chore. There was still an ache associated with the motion, but he felt a gentle chill along his sides that eased the hurt. He was startled at that, having no idea where the sensation could have come from. He was in no state to attempt any sort of self-cooling or self-repair beyond what his form would naturally perform on its own.

As he laid there, still annoyed at his current state of affairs but also mildly curious about the cold and mildly grateful for the cushioning that seemed to be underneath him, a smudge of color joined his peripheral vision. This time it didn't take nearly as long to sort out as it had on its previous appearance and he quickly reconciled the colors and shapes as a person. A timid person, approaching slowly.

A woman, he realized, the longer he watched. A woman with fawn colored hair, not well cared for, and icy blue eyes underlined with dark half-circles on her skin. Her skin was pale, which explained why he'd had such a time sorting her out earlier – her lack of strong color made her nearly bleed into the walls behind her. She looked young, vulnerable, and underfed. And yet as she approached him, her movements small and careful, there was something of an understated concern and authority that made him bite back the dismissal that had been forming in his head.

He watched her closely.

Katie found herself awake as the clocked rolled over to five am. When she did finally get to sleep these days, it was never very strong, and never very long. But as far as she could tell, though she had still automatically woken at the break of dawn, this time her sleep had been uninterrupted. She took a moment to appreciate the fact, and then pushed herself up off the carpet.

It took her almost a minute to remember why she had been sleeping on the floor in the living room in the first place. Her skin was slightly reddened where it had had prolonged contact with the floor and her back felt odd from sleeping on such a flat, hard surface. But in general, she felt more refreshed and alert and functional than she had in a very long time.

And then she recalled the stranger on her couch and bolted to a standing position, her head swimming with the sudden change in altitude. She wobbled a bit, hand to her forehead, and studied the man laid out there. The blanket rose and fell slowly, so he was alive and breathing. A good sign.

Then his eyes snapped open and she froze.

For a moment, he simply looked around. He made no noise, but then he tried to rise or maybe just shift positions. The movement ceased after a split second and a barely audible sound of pain and he once more laid still under the blanket, breathing a little more heavily.

Her uncertainty began to dissipate as she remembered the extent of his wounds, and she realized that he was her responsibility in every sense of the word, not least of all because she had been unable to even deal with the thought of calling emergency services to take care of him. Anything that happened to this man would be on her conscience, and she began mentally pushing away at all the instinctive uncertainties that arose upon viewing the blanketed form. She began taking tentative steps towards him, not wanting to frighten him or herself any further.

His eyes fixed on her and she suppressed a startled noise. They were a frosty green and they bore down on her with a shocking intensity for someone in such a compromised state.

Language stuck in her throat for several long moments before she managed to force out a mostly steady "How do you feel?"

"Where am I?" came the feeble yet demanding reply.

Katie sucked in a breath. His voice was lightly accented and sophisticated. She didn't know what she'd been expecting, but it wasn't that. He was a stranger in more ways than she had anticipated. And she realized that she wasn't certain how to answer his question.

"Our—my living room," she began, correcting the sobering memory quickly. "I found you in my backyard." He didn't say anything, and she paused before she forced herself onward. "I…don't know how much you remember. But this Shale Park. Ohio." She stopped, not sure how much further she should go. He'd clearly hit his head pretty hard, but she didn't want to seem patronizing.

The man made a face at the announcement, mouthing the name of the state seemingly derisively. "The name sounds of a Midgardian origin."

She couldn't even be certain that he was talking to her, but she responded as best she could. "I don't know what you mean. Where are you from?"

"You sound Midgardian."

"If you mean Midwestern…"

"Do you call this place Earth?"

She paused. "Yes…" Her mind was both numb and racing with impossible but seemingly unavoidable scenarios. _How far did you fall?_

The man now looked angry, and made another move as though to rise, but quickly sank back to the couch, his anger replaced by pain and possibly even fear.

Her own fears deserted her and she found herself on autopilot, approaching his side with no more trepidation but unpracticed hands that seemed to have instincts all their own. "What hurts?"

After a moment he gave a grudging answer: "My midsection. My head."

Katie pulled away the blankets, gingerly and soft, and checked his wounds. To her surprise, they seemed to be healing. Already. She shook her head slightly, wondering if she had slept much longer than she'd meant to. The comment about his midsection made her suspect that bruised ribs were mainly at fault, and she checked the ice packs she had nestled against either side of his chest. She suppressed another look of shock when she found them to be still well frozen. She counted hours in her head, certain there was no way for what she was seeing to be the truth. But her skin couldn't lie to her, and against everything she knew about basic science, the ice packs were still deeply cold, even hours after being removed from the freezer and placed against the warm flesh of a person.

"My name is Katie," she suddenly offered, unable to look the man in the eye as she gently checked his wounds.

"It is of no concern to me," came the bitter reply.

It didn't bother her. Very little did these days.

"Nothing seems infected," she quietly announced after her once over. "I might have some more ice for you, but a lot of this is just going to take time." She still couldn't make eye contact as she asked, "Do you want something for the pain?"

Silence was the only answer for several minutes. Then, weak but trying to be forceful and command respect: "That would…be useful."

She nodded and turned to the bottle of pills she had left on the side table. "Do you want some water?"

"Yes."

She hurried into the kitchen and returned with the glass, still avoiding his face as she instinctively cradled his head with one arm and offering the water and pills with the other.

He stiffened momentarily at her touch, but made no protest. He asked, suddenly suspicious, "What are those?"

"For the pain." Another impossibility threatened to toy with her mind, but she went along as though this was an everyday thing. "Swallow them, don't chew them."

The man obeyed, and she helped his weakened arms hold the glass as together they tipped water down his throat. He sucked at the water greedily, and she returned to the kitchen for a second glass after he'd finished the first. She placed a straw in this one, placed the glass on the coffee table, and pushed the table against the couch where he would have no trouble reaching it.

She stood where he could see her, but still avoided eye contact. "No matter what you've done," she said quietly. "I'm here to help. You're not under any obligation to stay. When your wounds heal, or before, you can leave. I don't mind either way." She didn't wait for a response, but added, "I have to go now" and turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" The man's voice was shockingly laced with something maybe nearing fear.

Katie turned back. "I have to go to work." Accidentally, her eyes caught his.

A long moment passed as neither looked away.

"I am called Loki," he finally said, quiet and with none of his earlier bitterness. "Will you stay?"


	4. Bitter

_Disclaimer: All original characters and such belong to Marvel._

**Summary: **Loki made the decision to let go. After that, gravity took its toll. And maybe fate. A lot happened between his fall from Asgard and his theft of the Tesseract. And he's the not the only one trying to deal with a heavy loss.

**Chronology: **Post-Thor, pre-Avengers

**Pairings: **None for the moment

**Rating: **T because of injuries in the second chapter

**Author's Note:** Apologies once again for the delay. Still not as much plot progression as I'd hoped, but I think I managed to introduce more of the character elements I wanted to explore. I want to get Loki up and about, but not too quickly – not before we've had some more lovely whump moments. (You're welcome, Starkreactor) I've got some things up my sleeve that I want to share with you guys soooo badly, but again, I don't want to rush. I greatly appreciate your reviews and your patience!

* * *

**Combat Scars**

The vulnerability of the question struck her ears with force, and the plea rang in her ears. _I am called Loki. Will you stay?_

Katie said nothing for several long moments, not even thinking. Just…absorbing. She looked at his pale and damaged face, the way the thin form moved slowly and painfully under the blanket. She looked at the clock, and then without knowing why, she nodded.

"I'll be right back," she assured him, and she stepped into the kitchen and picked up the phone. She dialed the number for the bank where she worked, listened to it ring twice, and then was greeted by Cindy's loud, pleasant voice.

"Gooood Morning, Shale Park Community Savings, this is Cindy."

Katie cleared her throat. "Um. Hi. Cindy. It's…it's Katie."

"Girl! What are you doing up so early?"

Katie considered the essentially naked, bleeding man on her couch. "It's…well it's a long story." Her finger twitched in the air and she realized it was instinctively looking for the cord, nonexistent on a cordless phone, but easily accessible on the corded phone she'd grown up with, the one she would practically knot around her finger in nervousness when she called…no, she couldn't think about that. Not now. Maybe not ever. She cleared her throat again, letting her voice slide into the most apologetic tone she knew. "I…Cindy, I don't think I can make it in today…" She left the words hanging in the short silence that followed, working up an apology.

And then, a small sigh, and a quieter, obviously relieved voice. "Girl, it is about time."

"Thank you Cindy…"

"You can thank me by taking a week. Maybe two. At least the one."

"I—"

"No. You take a week off, starting now. I'll talk to Danny for you."

Katie's throat closed up and her eyes welled in gratitude. She finally managed to force out a whispered, "Thanks."

"Good girl," came the soft reply, and there was a gentle click as Cindy's end of the line disconnected.

Katie hung up the phone, wiping at the unexpected tears making warm salty streaks down her face, and returned to the living room in a daze. She had almost forgotten about the man who had instigated the phone call, until she felt his eyes on her.

He said nothing, but there was a hint of something like curiosity there. Maybe even concern.

She said nothing either. She approached the couch and sat on the floor near his feet. "Do you need anything?"

"At the moment…no," came the still slightly labored reply.

"Okay…" she said, breathing the word out almost like a sigh. She made her way to his side slowly, still trying to reconcile the extreme absurdity of everything about this situation in her mind. She checked his wounds again out of instinct and habit, trying not to blush as she felt his eyes on her. Even having had the weight of his head nestled into the crook of her arm as she'd helped him swallow the pills, touching him seemed odd.

"Why are you doing this?" his voice came, cold yet vaguely vulnerable.

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"You do not know me."

"No…"

"And yet you tend to my wounds."

"Why wouldn't I?" her answer came without thinking, a whisper.

"How do you know that I want your help?" Loki's return question had bite to it.

Katie was momentarily without an answer, but once again without really considering it, one came to her and left her lips without her conscious decision. "It's not about wanting it," she said. "Not like this."

There was silence, and she ran her thumb across a line of broken flesh on his chest that was beginning to knit itself together with bright, shiny new red skin.

"How do you know I deserve it?" His voice came suddenly in the quiet, now his turn to whisper.

The question appeared so quietly she wasn't certain what she had heard at first. But when the words reconciled in her head, she made eye contact with the man, for the first time without fear. "Why would that matter?" she asked, a wave of sadness crashing over her that for once wasn't for herself.

They held a glance as the seconds ticked by, and she saw something move in Loki's face, tiny and nearly imperceptible. She couldn't identify it, and she didn't think even he knew what was going on in his own mind. When he finally looked away, she thought she saw the glint of a tear in one eye and her heart throbbed with sympathy.

She had been wrapped in her own pain for so long that the sharing of the sentiment, feeling it for someone other than herself, was of more relief than she could have imagined.

Loki disliked the vulnerability that washed over him as the woman asked why it would matter if he deserved the help she was giving. She knew nothing of him, and she had put herself to caring for his broken body. Normally he would dismiss such sudden devotion as a weakness, something to sneer at. But there was something different about her concern that made him bite back the words he'd wanted to toss around, and he felt his eyes moisten against his will. He couldn't bring himself to thank her – the words caught in his throat.

"Do you want something to eat?" the woman asked timidly, maybe seconds or minutes later.

Loki couldn't bring himself to turn back to face her. "No," he said, just as his stomach growled and announced otherwise.

"Let me see what I can find," she said, and he barely heard the soft noise of her footsteps on carpet as she walked away.

He counted silently in his head, estimating her distance from him to wherever she kept her food. When it seemed safe, that she would be occupied for a while, he turned his head back to observe the room. He didn't have the energy to wipe away the wetness that had trickled from one eye against his express wishes. He disliked the vulnerability, both physical and mental, that had fallen over him like a shroud. He disliked further the way that he found himself suddenly dependent on and somehow connected to this woman, once more directly contrary to his will. He wanted to sneer at his own weakness, but something desperate and primal in his emotions when she had earlier announced her intent to leave. In that brief moment before he had convinced her to stay, he had felt more alone even than when Odin had revealed his true parentage to him and he stood numb with shock feeling the world crumble silently around him.

He refused to let himself remember Thor and the woman who had changed him so. And he resolved to never let what had happened to his so-called brother happen to him. This woman would help him heal, and then he would find a way to return to Asgard and get what had been denied him; namely, the throne and the chance to rule. He had never been allowed a real chance to prove himself, and those that had kept that from him, those who should have been close and trustworthy but had instead lied to him…all those would pay a price for what they had done.

He numbed his pain with anger until this woman, Katie, returned with a platter of food.

"I'm not sure what you like," she said, placing it on the low table next to the couch on which he lay. "Or what you'll be able to eat right now. I tried to stick with plain stuff, soft stuff…" She gently cradled his head again, and he startled at the touch but allowed it as she tucked a number of small pillows under his head and neck. He muffled a groan as his wounds and bruises shifted, but she was gentle and the movements were slow and careful and once he settled back against the pillows the aching subsided to its previous levels. He looked over the offering of food she had brought him, and recognized bread and cheese and apples. There were grayish pink circles that were totally unfamiliar. He still found it hard to raise his arms and chose to simply nod instead.

"What are those?"

Confused, Katie followed his gaze. "Oh. Turkey."

He gave her a look.

"Lunch meat?"

He stared.

"We can skip the lunch meat." She paused, then removed the so-called meat from the plate. "I'll get you some more water." Another pause. "Do you want ice?"

A strange hurricane of feelings roared through his chest at the simple last word of her sentence, ridiculous on the surface but somehow linked enough to the fire building in his soul so that he had to be very careful about the tone in which he delivered an answer in the negative. His instinct was to hurl the word at her. He carefully dialed it back to a flat, "No."

Katie nodded and left once more, and Loki gingerly stretched out an arm to take a piece of bread.

When she returned, he was making slow work of the bread and a small piece of cheese. She sat on the floor and gazed away at a corner of the room. The silence should have been awkward, but wasn't. She glanced up now and again, seemingly to check on him as he slowly and painfully ate what little he felt his damaged body could withstand.

Katie began nibbling slightly at some of the food as Loki slowed down, at first seemingly absentmindedly, but then with increased hunger. He studied her figure more closely, and noticed that her clothing fit her ill and her cheekbones stuck out in her pale face. He wondered how long it had been since she'd been properly hungry, and why, but said nothing.

She seemed to feel his eyes on her and looked up, a slice of apple halfway to her mouth. "Who are you?" she asked.

He knew she hadn't simply forgotten his name. She wanted details. He looked up at the ceiling, pretending she wasn't in the room. She was a Midgardian. The last thing he wanted was help from the same kind of person who had so changed his former brother. He should bide his time, heal, and get out. She had admitted she wouldn't stop him, did not care what he had done or what decision he made. The last thing he wanted or needed in his life was anything or anyone who reminded him of Thor and Odin and all that had been taken from him.

In the same instance, he had a feeling that, clever as he was, he might need assistance to navigate this world without drawing attention to himself and to facilitate his return to Asgard. He could use her, a resource and nothing more, and make his triumphant return without the stink of frailty and changeability on him – he was Thor's better, even more than his equal. And he would prove it more ways than one.

But just as he'd resolved to make use of her however he wanted and could, he accidentally caught the corner of her eye with his and felt a tiny flicker of…something pass between them. Something familiar. There was no way for him to put a name to it, but he had a sudden moment of hesitation, a sudden, tiny connection of something deep and dark and painful that made him move her mentally to a category wholly separate from Thor's woman. He still would not be changed by a Midgardian, would not cede his plans, but he sensed perhaps more of a possibility of an alliance here than he had anticipated. He closed his eyes for a moment before formulating and presenting his answer.

"If I inform you of the truth," he said, his voice low and slow. "Do you swear to believe me?"

"Yes."

"Do not merely _say_ so. If you are simply humoring me for the sake of argument—"

"I swear to believe you," she said firmly, unconsciously placing a hand on his wrist to underscore her intent. "A lot of things here don't make sense. And why would you lie? I already told you, I don't care what you've done." Her voice suddenly faltered and it seemed as though she didn't want to speak anymore, as though the words had balled up and caught in her throat. But after several moments, with pain apparent on her face though she struggled mightily to hide it, the words broke free and tumbled quietly into the room. "There is nothing you can do to me that will hurt me, not anymore."

A tense silence hung in the space between them, and neither looked at the other as they processed her admission.

"I am Loki, of Asgard," he stated quietly. "And my burdens may become yours as well."


End file.
